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THANK YOU, MR. REAGAN
By Tim Siggia
June 11, 2004
Mr. Reagan, where you are right now, I know you can hear my unspoken voice in a way that was impossible in this world. So I want to take this time, in my own special way, to say thank you.
Thank you for running for president. Not just once, but several times, until you finally won. Thank you for persevering, for not giving up, either on yourself or on the country which you loved so dearly.
Thank you for becoming our president. You were the right man at the right time, and America never needed you so badly as she did when she elected you. Our economy was in a shambles, our foreign policy disastrous, our men and women in uniform had become paraiahs, and a Third World Islamic republic had taken over 400 of our citizens hostage, holding them with impunity as our statesmen and diplomats fretted helplessly.
Thank you for bringing back our citizens held hostage for so long in Iran. This is not to belittle the ceaseless efforts of Mr. Carter, who worked feverishly into the eleventh hour to negotiate their release. He deserves the credit for what he did. But America knew, as certainly did the government of Ayattolah Khomeini, that it was the specter of your impending presidency that was the strongest catalyst in their release.
Thank you for restoring the morale in our armed forces, and making military people proud to wear their uniforms again. I know, for I was a career sailor with a wife and family, and I both saw and experienced it for myself. Thank you for the pay raise that brought military pay into parity with that of civilians. Thank you for the snappy salutes that made service people salute you because they wanted to. And thank you for restoring military personnel, the people bound by oath to defend our freedoms, to their rightful place as first-class citizens.
Thank you for not letting yourself get deterred by your detractors and by those who wanted you to fail. When your adversaries in the media meant to get in your way, you took your case directly to those who elected you, and the people heard you. Your rhetoric was simple, yet eloquent. Everybody understood what you were saying. You were truly the Great Communicator.
Thank you for cutting our taxes and implementing economic policies that would serve your turn long after you were no longer able to personally oversee them -- policies whose long-term results a successor in the White House would claim credit for, even as he was doing everything he could to undo those policies.
Thank you for calling the Soviet Union by its proper name, the Evil Empire, and for scrapping the failed foreign policy of your predecessors that we knew as detente. Throughout the sneering and jeering of your political adversaries you remained resolute and unswayed. Your finest hour was when you stood in front of the Berlin Wall, and, before the entire world, called upon Mikhail Gorbachev to tear it down. True, a speechwriter wrote those words for you. But it was you who insisted on keeping and using those words when all about you were telling you to strike them from the speech. It was an audacious move, but it ultimately worked. In time, the Berlin Wall did come down. So, finally, did the Soviet Union itself. It all happened without a shot being fired or a missile being launched. This, Mr. Reagan, was your legacy, not only to America, but to the entire world, specifically that portion of it which had long suffered under the yoke of communism. Thank you, Mr. Reagan, for that legacy!
Thank you for never giving way to hatred, even as you were certainly aware that some people were hating you. Even when struck down by the bullet of a would-be assassin, you still found the strength and courage to be upbeat, even humorous. Though you did attack those policies and ideas you believed to be false, these attacks were never personal; they were never directed at individuals. In that, Mr. Reagan, you proved yourself a bigger and better man than any of your attackers.
Finally, Mr. Reagan, thank you for simply being who you were: an honest, fundamentally decent human being who would serve as a role model for people he never knew. Thank you for your unswerving belief in America, for your optimism, for your insistence on choosing what was right over what was merely convenient. Thank you for being, in your time, a living, breathing symbol of America, and of everything that America ought to be.
Thank you, Mr. Reagan.
May you rest in eternal peace.
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